Running a business on intuition can only take you so far.

That’s why MSCI aggregates the opinions of service center leaders across North America into a complete picture of what’s expected for the next three months.

The MSCI Metals Tendencies Report is a monthly opinion survey conducted by MSCI’s economics consulting firm. This professionally prepared survey asks senior service center executives for their judgment about a consistent set of industry conditions over the next three months:

Will shipments be up or down?

What are their plans for ordering more material?

What are their company’s hiring plans?

The Metals Tendencies report can be used to benchmark your opinion against that of the collective opinion of the participating executives and to glean information about future service center market conditions.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions in the survey ask respondents to express their outlook for the next three months as “significantly above”, “above”, “no change”, “below” or “significantly below” current conditions.

The data in this report is expressed as a diffusion index. A positive diffusion index suggests that the balance of the responses is for better conditions in the future. A negative diffusion index indicates the opposite. How far the Index is above or below zero suggests the degree of consensus regarding movements in that direction.

Bars above zero indicate a tendency for better conditions in the future. A higher bar indicates more respondents agree with the sentiment.

The zero line indicates equally positive and negative opinion.

Bars below zero indicate a tendency for worse conditions in the future. A lower bar indicates more respondents agree with the sentiment.